Refinishing oak stairs, what to use?

[Hal Flynt]

Title says it all.

Stairs will be scrapped, sanded and the raw wood has a coat of BLO. Last time I just used MinWax Gloss Poly. It was Ok, but there's probably something better that I can get by the quart.

Thanks in advance!

[Howard Acheson]

You are going to be better off using a poly finish that is specifically made for floors. Finishes specific for floors is formulated to be harder than a poly varnish that says it can be used for a number of application including floors. These are formulated differently and won't perform as well as a floor specific product.

To point out an example, Minwax makes the following oil base polyurethane finishes.

www.minwax.com/products/protective/fast-poly.cfm
www.minwax.com/products/protective/highbuild.cfm
http://www.minwax.com/products/prote...super-fast.cfm

The first two are general purpose poly varnishes that can also be used for floors. Only the last one is a product specifically formulated for floors. Most finish manufacturers have a similar situation.

If you don't want to use Minwax, there are a number of others. Go to a real paint store and see what they offer.

[John Mihich]

Another option besides poly. There is a product out there called Fabulon (sp). It's lacquer based and is used on bowling alleys. It dries real fast and of course will hold up. Down side - it stinks. For stairs it's nice since you can coat it and walk on it a couple hours later.

[Hal Flynt]

Thanks for both responses.

I can find the MinWax for floors and Varathane gallons only, so that means a lot of waste. I will look for the Fabulon too.

Last time I did this was 10 years ago and I only put 2 coats of regular MinWax Poly/ I painted myself out the front door and went to the beach for a week while it cured. I may cover every other step one day and then the others the next since we use them 15 -20 time a day.